UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
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APPEAL 


UNIVERSITY  of  ILLINOIS. 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


RELIEVP:    from    starvation  the  AVOMEN  ANJ) 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  GREEKS 


OF  THE 


ISLAND  OF  CRETE. 


APPEAL 


TO  THE 


PEOPLE  OE  THE  UNITED  STATES 


TO 


RELIEVE    FROM    STARVATION   THE   WOMEN  AND 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  GREEKS 


OF  THE 


ISLAND  OF  CRETE. 


BOSTON: 
GEO.  C.  RAND  &  AVERY,  PRINTERS,  3  CORNHTLL. 
1  867. 


Cfl  tlje  IPcopIc  ai  llje  Wimtti)  Slates. 

> 

I  Thousands  of  the  women  and  children  of  the  Island  of  Crete 

^  (or  Candia)  appeal  to  Europe  and  America  to  save  them 
from  starvation.  We  will  briefly  state  the  causes  of  their  suf- 
fering, and  the  necessity  for  its  relief. 

The  Greek  Revolution  of  1821  lasted  nine  years.  Of  that 
revolution,  the  Greeks  of  the  large  Island  of  Crete  were  an 
integral  part;  and,  when  the  Allied  Powers  intervened  to 
determine  the  boundaries  of  Greece,  Cretan  successes  had  made 
the  expulsion  of  the  Turks  from  the  island  a  certainty.  Against 
the  prophetic  protests  of  statesmen  like  Palmerston,  and  to 
the  horror  of  all  Greece,  the  island  was  made  over  by  the 
Allied  Powers  to  Turkey ;  thus  sacrificing  the  integrity,  of  a 
race  to  a  short-sighted  diplomacy.  From  that  day,  Crete  has 
7  been,  confessedly,  the  worst  governed  of  the  Turkish  prov- 
inces. The  will  of  her  governor  has  virtually  been  her  only 
law  ;  and,  under  the  Turkish  system  of  farming  out  her  reve- 
nues, he  pays  an  agreed  sum  to  the  Sultan,  and  then,  under 
the  name  of  taxes,  extorts  almost  all  of  the  yearly  hard  earn- 
ings of  the  people,  whose  personal  and  political  rights  he 
tramples  under  foot.  Crete  has  protested  in  vain.  She  has 
respectfully  and  repeatedly  appealed  to  the  Sultan  to  give 
her  the  civil  and  religious  rights  guaranteed  by  the  protocols 
of  i>he  Allied  Powers  and  by  his  own  later  edicts,  only  to 
be  spurned  with  contempt. 

At  last,  human  nature  could  endure  such  oppression  no 
longer  ;  and,  on  the  28th  day  of  August  last,  the  Cretans  raised 
the  Greek  flag.  Fighting  began,  and,  notwithstanding  the 
telegraphic  despatches  received  through  Turkish  channels,  is 
ably  and  fiercely  maintained.  Greeks  from  Greece  and  else- 
where, and  Garibaldians  from  Italy,  are  pouring  in  to  their 


4 


aid.  Turkey,  utterly  bankrupt,  has  called  in  the  aid  of  Egypt. 
The  Cretans  ask  for  neither  arms  nor  ammunition.  They  can 
do  the  fighting.  They  only  ask  that  we  save  from  actual 
starvation  their  women  and  cliildren,  who  have  fled  and  are 
flying  to  the  neighboring  islands  and  to  Greece.  Ten  thou- 
sand of  them  have  already  reached  Athens.  Greece  and 
Athens  are  themselves  poor.  As  laying  the  country  utterly 
waste,  and  the  absolute  extermination  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  are  the  rules  of  Turkish  warfare,  and  as  the  fighting 
men  need  the  suppHes  consumed  by  the  women  and  children, 
the  Greeks  propose  to  send  away  all  of  them.  Once  away,  we 
have  as  indisputable  a  right,  under  international  law,  to  save 
them  from  starvation,  as  if  they  were  landed  starving  in  Canada 
or  on  our  own  shores.  In  the  Revolution  of  1821,  American 
supplies  sought  out  and  relieved  the  sufl'ering  women  and 
children  upon  the  island  itself ;  and  America  is  a  sweet  name 
in  all  Greek  ears  to-day. 

It  is  not  only  a  war  for  the  relief  of  Crete  from  intolerable 
oppression :  it  is  a  war  for  the  restoration  of  the  integrity  of 
the  Greek  race  under  one  nationality ;  for  Christianity  against 
Mahometanism ;  for  civilization  against  barbarism.  It  appeals 
to  our  common  humanity,  to  our  love  of  liberty,  to  our  Chris- 
tian faith.  Were  there  no  more  imperative  duty,'  and  no 
more  inspiring  sentiment,  it  appeals  to  us  as  a  commercial 
people,  in  the  prospect  of  an  enlarged,  substantial,  and  friend- 
ly Greek  nation  opening  new  sources  of  trade  with  the  Levant, 
and  re-civilizing  Asia  Minor  and  Judsea. 

This  sad  cry  of  distress  is  irresistible.  We  have,  to  be 
sure,  our  own  poor  and  our  own  necessary  charities.  We 
have,  too,  our  own  extravagance  and  waste.  Denying  no 
just  charity  at  home,  let  us  remember  that  our  own  women 
and  children  are  not  starving.  ^ 

The  letter  from  our  estimable  United-States  consul  in  Crete, 
which  we  print  below,  and  a  letter  from  the  Cretan  Central 
Committee  to  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe  of  Boston,  confirmed  by 
public  and  private  advices,  induced  the  call  for  a  public  meet- 
ing, the  eloquent  addresses  there  made  and  herewith  pre- 
sented, and  the  appointment  of  a  committee  of  citizens  of 


Boston,  and  other  citizens  of  Massaclmsetts,  to  devise  prompt 
methods  and  means  of  relief. 

What  shall  be  done  ?  1.  It  is  proposed  by  the  Committee  to 
call  upon  Boston  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  known  means  to 
contribute  liberally  in  money  ;  but,  as  it  will  be  impossible 
to  call  upon  many  who  ought  to  aid,  it  is  respectfully  urged 
that  those  not  asked  send  their  names  and  subscriptions  to 
the  Treasurer  of  the  Committee. 

2.  It  is  earnestly  recommended,  not  only  that  the  other 
cities  of  Massachusetts,  but  more  especially  the  other  great 
cities  of  the  country,  appoint  committees  to  take  similar  steps 
for  prompt  co-operative  aid. 

3.  We  are  confident  that  Western  cities,  like  Cincinnati,  De- 
troit, Chicago,  and  St.  Louis,  if  the  necessary  organizing  steps 
are  taken,  will  contribute  freely  in  money,  or  in  corn,  flour, 
and  pork ;  and  that  the  railroads  will  aid  gladly  in  the  work  of 
transportation.  Good  men  and  true,  in  their  boards  of  trade 
and  corn  exchanges,  will  surely  be  found  to  give  cheerful  help. 
Within  a  year,  corn  has  been  burned  for  fuel  in  towns  of  the 
West  lying  upon  railroads ;  and  now  corn  placed  on  ship-board 
will  soon  be  saving  human  life. 

Finally,  let  every  one  help  according  to  his  means,  and  his 
bread  shall  come  back  to  him  and  his  country  after  many 
days. 

It  is  desired  that  co-operative  committees  for  collecting 
subsci'iptions  and  supplies  be  formed  in  the  other  large  cities 
and-t!owns'  of  this  and  other  States. 

Special *■  care  will  be  taken  to  prevent  any  loss  or  abuse  of 
contributions.  If  need  be,  responsible  men  will  go  out,  with- 
out any  charge  whatever  upon  the  funds  contributed,  to  see 
that  the  supplies  reach  only  real  and  worthy  sufferers. 

Con,tributions  may  be  sent  to  the  Treasurer  or  to  any  of  the 
General  Committee,  or  to  the  Executive  Committee,  at  their 
office.  No.  20,  Bromfield  Street,  Boston. 

Supplies  for  shipment  may  be  sent  to  J.  M.  Rodocanachi, 
No.  30,  Central  Wharf. 

SAMUEL  G.  HOWE,  President 
JOHN  A.  ANDREW,  Vice-President. 
AMOS  A.  LAWRENCE,  Treasurer. 
HERMANN  J.  AVARNER, }  e      ,  • 
HORATIO  WOODMAN,    ^  Secretaries. 


6 


GENERAL  COMMITTEE. 


William  R.  Alger. 
(jEorgk  W.  Bond. 
Nathaniel  G.  Chapin. 
William  Claflin. 
John  Codman. 

eJoiiN  H.  Clifford,  New  Bedford. 

A.  Crocker,  Fitchburg. 

Charles  A.  Cummings. 

Richard  II.  Dana,  Jr. 

Charles  W.  Dabney. 

Henry  G.  Denny. 

James  A.  Dupee. 

J.  AViLEY  Edmands. 

Samuel  Eliot. 

John  M.  Forbes. 

Albert  Fearing. 

Thomas  Gaffield. 

Thomas  Groom. 

Charles  E.  Guild. 

EsTES  Howe. 

Edward  E.  Hale. 

Robert  W.  Hooper. 

Frederic  D.  Huntington. 

Edward  W.  Kinsley. 


Henry  P.  Kidder. 

D.  Waldo  Lincoln,  Worcester. 

Henry  W.  Longfellow. 

Amos  A.  Lawrence. 

Charles  G.  Loring. 

George  W.  Messinger. 

R.  M.  Morse,  Jr. 

Henry  L.  Pierce. 

Edward  N.  Perkins. 

AVendell  Phillips. 

Avery  Plumer. 

W,  P.  Phillips,  Salem. 

Geo.  C.  Richardson,  Lowell. 

Royal  E.  Robbins. 

J.  M.  Rodocanaciii. 

AVarren  Sawyer. 

George  C.  Shattuck. 

Ben.jamin  F.  Stevens. 

Charles  F.  Shimmin. 

James  Sturgis. 

Christopher  T.  Thayer. 

Samuel  H.  AValley. 

Stephen  M.  AVeld. 

G.  AValker,  Springfield. 


The  following  letter  is  from  our  United-States  consul  in 
Candia,  whose  high  character  is  well  known  in  Boston :  — 

The  Eastern  War.  —  An  Appeal  for  the  Suffering  Cre- 
tans.—  United-States  Consulate,  Canea. 

To  the  Editor  of  "  The  New-  York  Times^  —  Will  you  permit 
me  to  make,  through  your  columns,  an  appeal  to  the  American 
people  in  behalf  of  the  Cretan  families  reduced  to  destitution 
and  suffering  by  the  destruction  of  their  crops  and  villages 
in  consequence  of  the  pending  hostilities  ? 

Thousands  of  them,  self-exiled  to  the  nearest  Greek  islands, 
are  without  employment  or  provisions  for  the  winter;  and 
those  who  remain  of  the  women  and  children  seek  to  join  the 
more  fortunate  refugees. 

If  the  world's  charity  is  not  large  to  these  unfortunates, 
there  will  be  such  suffering  as  has  not  been  known  in  this 
part  of  the  world  since  the  Greek  Revolution,  when  American 
charity  saved  the  lives  of  thousands  of  Cretans,  and  won 
blessings  which  are  still  clinging  to  our  nation. 


7  x 


What  we  want  is,  not  arms  or  material  to  strengthen  the 
insurgents,  but  bread  to  keep  women  and  children  from  perish- 
ing. Will  not  the  charitable  organize  some  effort  to  keep  our 
Christian  poor  from  starvation  ?  The  Greeks  are  doing  all 
they  can ;  but  the  sufferers  are  many,  and  the  Greek  nation 
poor. 

Contributions  might  be  sent  by  any  Levant-bound  ship  to 
Syra,  care  of  the  United-States  Consular-General,  Em.  Sapun- 
zacki ;  but  what  would  be  worthier  of  us  would  be  to  send  a 
ship  freighted  for  these  unfortunates. 

Yours  sincerely, 

W.  J.  STILLMAN, 

U.  S.  Consul,  Canea,  Island  of  Crete. 

The  following  eloquent  speeches  of  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Howe, 
Rev.  Dr.  Huntington,  and  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips,  were  made  at 
a  public  meeting  in  Boston  on  the  evening  of  Jan.  7,  1867. 
Dr.  Kirk  was  unable  to  be  present;  but  we  print  his  written 
speech. 

REMARKS  OF  DR.  HOWE. 


Fellow-citizens  and  Friends,  —  History  repeats  herself 
wonderfully,  even  within  the  lifetime  of  one  man.  Excuse 
me,  therefore,  if,  in  illustration  of  the  object  of  our  meeting,  I 
allude  oftener  to  my  own  experience  than  good  taste  warrants. 
Forty -five  years  ago,  the  world  was  startled  by  the  news  that 
the  Greeks,  who  had  been  enslaved  four  centuries,  had  re- 
volted, driven  out  their  Turkish  oppressors,  gained  great 
successes,  and  that  the  revolt  promised  to  become  a  revolu- 
tion. The  Turks,  taken  at  first  by  surprise,  and  driven  out  of 
the  country,  returned  with  vast  armies ;  and  the  struggle 
was  renewed. 

This  country  was  deeply  interested,  and  even  painfully 
agitated  ;  and  people  looked  with  anxiety  for  news  by  every 


8 


packet.  The  odds  were  fearfully  against  the  Greeks;  and  we 
received  frequent  news  of  their  overthrow  and  of  their  sub- 
mission, as  we  now  do  about  the  Cretans.  All  people,  at  home 
and  abroad,  Avho  sympathized  with  despotism,  said  these 
reports  must  be  true  ;  while  all  who  sympathized  with  free- 
dom hoped  they  might  be  false.  We  were  frequently  told 
that  the  Greeks  had  been  routed,  scattered,  massacred,  and 
exterminated.  They  were  declared  to  be  crushed  out,"  as 
often  as  our  old  friends  the  abolitionists  were  ;  but  somehow 
they  kept  rising  up  again.  I  therefore  resolved  to  go  and 
learn  the  truth,  and  to  lend  a  helping  hand  if  there  were  yet 
time. 

Everybody  whom  I  met  on  the  way  said  it  was  no  use  to 
go  on ;  that  it  was  all  over  with  the  Greeks ;  and  that  the 
Turks  were  burying  the  bodies  of  the  slain,  just  as  they  are 
said  to  be  doing  now  in  Crete. 

When  at  last  I  dropped  from  an  Austrian  vessel  upon  the 
coast  of  Maina,  near  old  Sparta,  I  found  that  the  Greeks  — 

within  a  narrower  ring,  beset,  comprest,  hopeless,  not  heart- 
less —  strove  and  struggled  yet."  It  was  a  war  to  the  knife  ; 
a  war  without  quarter,  without  mercy,  —  even  to  women  and 
children.     V(b  victis ! 

Byron  had  just  died ;  and  many  foreigners  who  had  come 
to  help  the  cause  w^ere  going  away  discouraged. 

But  the  Greeks  were  united  and  resolute,  without  thought 
of  surrender,  or  even  of  compromise.  There  was  not  a  cop- 
perhead among  them. 

They  struggled  on  another  year,  when  the  armies  of  the 
Sultan  became  so  much  reduced,  and  his  resources  so  ex- 
hausted, that  he  was  obliged  to  do  exactly  as  he  has  done  in 
the  struggle  with  the  Cretans. 

He  called  upon  the  Pacha  of  Egypt,  his  nominal  satrap,  who 
sent  a  large  and  disciplined  army  and  a  powerful  fleet.  The 
Greeks  could  not  cope  with  these  disciplined  troops ;  but  they 
would  not  submit,  and,  retreating  to  the  mountains,  carried 
on  a  guerilla  war  with  the  invaders,  pouncing  down  upon 
their  flanks,  and  harassing  them  in  every  possible  way. 

The  Egyptians  did  exactly  as  they  have  been  doing  lately 
in  Crete.    They  overran  all  the  open  country,  and  burnt  the 


9 


towns  aud  villages,  literally  razing  the  buildings  to  the  ground. 
They  cut  down  the  groves  of  orange,  olive,  and  lemon ;  and 
they  tore  up  the  vines;  thus  not  only  killing  every  living 
thing,  but  trying  to  prevent  any  thing  from  growing.  By  this 
process,  the  Greeks  were  in  danger  of  being  utterly  starved 
out. 

During  that  dark  and  dreadful  period,  I  saw  thousands  and 
thousands  of  women  and  children  who  had  fled  to  the  moun- 
tains, seeking  shelter  in  the  caverns,  under  the  lee  of  rocks, 
under  rude  tents,  sheltered  anyliow,  and  living  on  roots, 
sorrel,  snails,  dogs,  donkeys,  —  any  thing  that  could  be  found. 

I  could  then  digest  a  donkey's  leg  better  than  I  can  now 
digest  a  chicken's  wing.  So  I  could  stand  it  pretty  well,  and 
so  could  other  young  men  ;  but  the  women  and  children  suf- 
fered dreadfully  from  cold,  exposure,  and  hunger,  aggravated 
by  fear  and  by  despair,  — just  as  the  women  and  children  of 
the  Cretans  are  now  suffering. 

It  became  manifest,  however,  that  even  snails  and  sorrel 
and  dogs  and  cats  would  be  soon  exhausted ;  and  that,  if 
Greece  was  to  be  saved,  it  must  be  by  help  from  abroad. 
Soon  help  was  coming  in  from  Europe,  and  a  little  from  the 
United  States,  but  not  enough :  so  I  came  home,  and  told 
the  tale.  The  result  was  the  raising  of  a  very  large  sum  of 
money,  and  the  sending-out  several  cargoes  of  food  and  cloth- 
ing. I  went  back  in  one  of  the  ships,  and  attended  to  the 
distribution  personally. 

Knowing  the  whole  coast,  I  took  lighters  and  boats  to  vari- 
ous points  ;  and  people  flocked  down  by  thousands  from  their 
hiding-places  in  the  mountains  to  get  their  share :  they  came 
haggard  and  weak  and  foot-sore  and  half  naked.  They  ate 
and  drank,  and  put  on  the  clothes,  and  wended  their  way  back, 
carrying  flour  and  corn  in  bags,  and  garments  for  their  little 
ones  in  bundles,  and  joy  and  hope  in  their  hearts.  Their 
appearance  was  grotesque  enough.  They  hardly  knew  how 
to  put  on  the  strange  garments ;  and,  besides,  the  tender 
hearts  of  our  women  had  led  them  to  make  a  score  of  chil- 
dren's petticoats  and  shirts  to  one  garment  for  a  grown  per- 
son.   So  the  Greek  women  would  take  three  or  four  of  these, 

2 


10 


and  make  for  themyelves  one  garment,  without  much  regard 
to  color  or  pattern. 

But  the  effect  was  marxtellous :  not  only  were  thousands  fed 
and  clad,  but  the  report  tliereof  went  abroad,  and  was  mag- 
nified an  hundred-fold;  and  men  said,  "Courage;  hold  on  to 
your  arms;  help  is  at  hand!  Far-off  republican  America  is 
coming  to  our  aid  !  "    And  they  held  on. 

As,  in  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  the  godlike  vir- 
tue of  Him  who  brake  the  bread  gave  to  it  power  to  fill  the 
multitude  ;  so  the  love  and  good  will  of  the  American  people 
filled  the  hearts  of  the  Greeks  with  courage  and  hope. 

They  held  out  two  years  more  ;  and  I  hesitate  not  to  say  — 
for  I  was  there  all  the  time  to  see,  and  had  become  as  one  of 
them  —  that  the  American  supplies  did  more  than  any  one 
thing  to  keep  up  the  courage  of  the  people,  and  lengthen  out 
their  struggle  for  independence. 

At  the  end  of  two  years,  the  Christian  world  had  become  so 
shocked  by  the  persistence  of  a  semi-barbarous  Mahometan 
power  to  subjugate  a  Christian  people  even  in  Europe,  that 
the  governments  of  France,  England,  and  Russia  were  forced 
to  send  a  large  fleet  to  the  scene  of  warfare,  and  to  insist 
on  a  pacification. 

An  accident  brought  on  the  great  sea-fight  at  Navarino, 
and  the  utter  destruction  of  the  Egyptian  and  Turkish  fleet. 

That  unexpected  and  "  untoward  event,"  as  it  is  called  by 
a  British  cabinet  minister,  assured  and  secured  the  independ- 
ence of  Greece,  at  least  so  far  as  the  Mahometans  were  con- 
cerned, because  it  left  the  Greeks  masters  at  sea.  No  more 
troops  could  come  from  Egypt.  None  could  come  from  Turkey 
by  land  ;  for  we  held  the  passes,  and  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth. 
As  for  the  Turkish  armies  in  Greece,  they  would  have  soon 
been  starved ;  for  they  themselves  had  utterly  destroyed  all 
sources  of  supply. 

But  the  Allied  Powers  would  not  let  slip  the  opportunity 
which  the  untoward  event "  at  Navarino  gave  them  to  crush 
out  the  republican  institutions  which  the  Greeks  had  estab- 
lished. So  they  put  a  Bavarian  prince  upon  a  throne  ;  and  a 
French  army  came  to  support  him,  as  they  afterwards  at- 
tempted to  support  a  sprig  of  royalty  in  Mexico. 


11 


Then  they  proceeded  to  arrange  the  boundaries,  and  shocked 
all  Greece  when  they  declared  that  Crete  should  be  left  out 
of  the  new  kingdom,  and  given  over  to  the  Turks. 

The  Cretans  had  been  a  long  time  in  revolt.  They  had 
taken  and  they  held  one  of  the  strongest  fortifications.  The 
inhabitants  had  indeed  abandoned  much  of  the  open  country, 
and  retreated  to  the  mountain-range  of  the  interior,  where 
the  brave  Sphakiotes  maintained  their  independence,  and 
kept  the  flag  of  Grreece  flying. 

The  Cretans  everywhere  shared  the  dangers  and  the  strug- 
gles of  the  other  Greeks,  and  were  distinguished  for  patriot- 
ism and  good  sense. 

I  knew  hundreds  of  them,  —  good  men  and  true.  I  had 
been  in  their  beautiful  island,  and  stood  a  siege  with  them  in 
one  of  their  beleaguered  fortresses,  and  witnessed  their  cour- 
age. I  knew  that  the  independence  of  Crete  was  just  as  well 
assured  by  the  result  at  Navarino  as  that  of  any  part  of 
Greece.  Giving  up  the  Cretans,  therefore,  to  the  Turks, 
seemed  to  me  then  as  unrighteous  and  cruel  as  seems  now  the 
proposal  to  give  up  the  negroes  who  fouglit  with  us  and  for 
us  to  the  dominion  of  their  old  masters,  without  even  a  ballot- 
box  for  defence. 

But  Greece  was  forced  to  disarm  :  she  was  utterly  at  the 
mercy  of  the  Allied  Powers  ;  and  Crete  was  given  over,  bound 
hand  and  foot,  to  her  enemies  and  her  old  oppressors. 

The  Cretans  have  suffered  ever  since  all  the  indignities  and 
wrongs  and  barbarous  oppression  which  Christian  subjects  of 
Turkey  always  suff'er  when  they  live  so  remote  from  the  cap- 
ital that  even  the  little  protection  which  the  Porte  affords 
cannot  reach  them.  At  last  they  have  revolted,  and  have 
maintained  a  struggle  at  fearful  odds,  but  gallantly  and  suc- 
cessfully, for  several  months. 

They  have  been  driven  at  last  from  the  open  country  ;  their 
towns  have  been  destroj^ed,  their  villages  burned,  their  fields 
ravaged,  their  olive-groves  and  vineyards  cut  down  or  pulled 
up :  and  so  it  is  the  old  story  over  again.  I  see  them  now, 
the  sons  of  my  old  companions,  in  their  snowy  camise  and 
their  shaggy  capotes,  saying  sadly,  "  Good-by,  mother  !  good- 
by,  sister  and  child  !  Seek  your  refuge  in  the  neighboring  isles, 


12 


upon  the  main,  wherever  the  hand  of  Christian  mercy  may 
aid  you :  we  go  to  the  mountains,  to  keep  the  flag  of  freedom 
flying  so  long  as  we  live," 

My  friends,  these  unfortunate  women  and  children  are  now 
suffering  as  many  of  their  mothers  suffered  forty  years  ago. 

Your  fathers  and  your  mothers  relieved  them  :  will  you  not 
relieve  their  children  ? 

My  friends,  this  is  not  a  mere  struggle  between  a  few 
islanders  and  their  oppressors ;  for,  though  it  is  no  fault  of 
the  Cretans,  their  island  has  become  the  field  for  the  last  fight 
between  Greece  and  Turkey,  between  Christianity  and  Ma- 
hometanism,  between  freedom  and  despotism,  in  the  Levant. 
Diplomacy  says  we  may  not  interfere  as  a  nation ;  but  hu- 
manity says  we  ought  to  interfere  as  men  and  women,  and 
at  least  feed  the  hungry  and  clothe  the  naked. 

REMARKS  OF  REV.  DR.  KIRK. 


Felloiv-citizens,  —  It  is  the  cry  of  distress  that  brings  us 
here  together  to-night.  To  disregard  that  cry  would  show  us 
to  be  inhuman.  But  we  hear  more  than  that  in  the  accounts 
and  appeals  which  have  come  to  us  from  that  outpost  of  classic 
Greece.  We  hear  the  surging  of  that  mighty  tidal  wave 
which  is  rolling  over  the  moral  world,  —  a  wave  whose  impulse, 
like  the  tides  of  ocean,  comes  from  the  powers  above.  States- 
men and  captains  may  figure  largely  in  the  recent  and  present 
agitations  of  America  and  Europe  ;  but  they  neither  originate 
nor  regulate  these  mighty  movements. 

European  statesmen  trace  the  agitations  that  are  perpetu- 
ally disturbing  their  delicate  balance  of  power  to  Washington 
and  St.  Petersburg.  This  is  shallow.  What  cabinet  at  Wash- 
ington  could  ever  have  induced  one  million  freemen  of  the 
North  to  sever  every  tie  of  life,  and  subject  themselves  to  the 
tyranny  and  the  sacrifice  of  military  life,  until  they  should  see 


13 


the  hideous  idol  of  the  South  —  the  Juggernaut  of  America  — 
lie  headless,  dethroned,  and  abandoned  in  the  dust,  and  the 
banner  of  freedom  waving  unchallenged  over  every  foot  of 
his  usurped  dominions  ?  No,  brethren  ;  the  world  is  moving 
onward  ;  the  kingdom  is  coming  ;  the  Spirit  that  brooded  over 
ancient  chaos  has  now  spread  his  wings  over  the  moral  chaos 
of  a  half-regenerated  world.  Under  the  breath  of  his  Creator, 
man  is  awakening  to  a  new  conception  of  his  rights,  his  ca- 
pacities, and  his  destiny.  That  explains  the  Cretan  insurrec- 
tion, as  well  as  many  other  movements  that  are  now  disturb- 
ing the  repose  of  men  holding  power. 

We  are  assembled  to  aid  each  other  in  the  contemplation  of 
one  section  of  the  vast  battle-field  to  which  the  battle  of  Bun- 
ker Hill  has  now  been  transferred,  —  might  against  right,  bar- 
barism against  civilization,  the  many  against  the  few,  Maho- 
met against  Christ.  The  main  issues  are  still  and  ever  the  same 
in  every  age,  while  each  period  and  place  has  its  peculiar 
phases  and  features.  The  question,  then,  brought  home  to 
each  of  us  by  the  present  occasion,  is  this  :  How  does  the 
scene  affect  me  ?  Have  I  a  heart,  a  human  heart,  a  Christ-like 
heart?  Are  my  sympathies  with  Islam  or  with  Jesus,  the 
brutal  Turk  or  the  offspring  of  classic  Greece,  now  baptized 
in  Jesus'  name?  When  the  famine  invaded  that  land,  we 
flew  to  their  relief.  Now  the  cry  is  not  merely  nor  mainly  for 
bread  :  it  is  for  liberty  like  our  own,  for  their  Christian  altars, 
for  their  very  lives.  No,  not  their  lives  :  them  they  are  sur- 
rendering freely.  When  the  venerable  Gabriel,  head  of  the 
renowned  Monastery  of  Arkadi,  surrounded  by  a  hundred  and 
seventy  fighting  men,  and  more  than  three  hundred  women 
and  children,  had  defended  his  monastery  for  two  days  with 
great  bravery  against  sixteen  thousand  Turks,  rather  than  sur- 
render to  such  an  enemy,  with  the  consent  of  all,  he  apph'ed 
the  match  to  the  magazine,  and  buried  himself,  his  friends, 
and  their  foes,  in  a  common  grave. 

No,  it  is  not  for  their  lives  they  are  now  begging  at  our 
doors.  With  a  heroism  never  surpassed,  they  have  consecrat- 
ed the  life  of  every  man  capable  of  bearing  arms  to  their 
country's  deliverance.  They  ask  not  that  we  should  interfere 
in  the  fight,  or  shield  them  in  battle,  or  even  save  them  from 


the  brutal  scimetar  that  murders  prisoners  of  war.  This  is 
their  simple  request:  having  sent  away  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, whom  the  Turkish  soldier  first  subjects  to  every  degra- 
dation, and  then  slaughters,  they  ask  us  to  save  those  loved 
ones  from  starvation,  while  they  make  their  own  bodies  a  ram- 
part around  their  dwellings ;  that,  if  possible,  their  children  may 
yet  live  in  that  beloved  island-home,  free  from  the  oppression 
that  has  ground  them  to  the  dust.  We  must  heed  their  cry ; 
for  they  are  men,  suffering  men,  oppressed  and  outraged. 
They  are  mainly  Greeks,  long  lost  to  the  world  tlirough  the 
crushing  power  of  Turkish  provincial  despotism.  They  are 
a  Christian  race,  crying,  like  Israel  in  Egypt,  to  God  and  to 
man ;  for  the  burden  has  now  become  intolerable.  They  are 
a  Christian  race :  and  yet  the  mighty  Christian  powers  of 
Europe  have  combined  to  deliver  them  over  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  an  organized  banditti,  to  thieves  and  murderers  ; 
for  such,  by  its  very  structure,  is  the  provincial  department 
of  the  Turkish  Government.  The  only  power  the  Sublime 
Porte  leaves  to  itself  is  that  of  enforcing  the  tyrannical  require- 
ments and  the  cruel  extortions  of  its  pachas.  And,  to  com- 
plete the  misery  of  our  brethren,  the  leading  presses  of  Europe 
lend  their  prodigious  influence  to  keep  the  Christian  world 
satisfied  with  this  state  of  things. 

But  we  must  act  with  discretion  as  well  as  zeal.  In  the 
flush  of  our  excited  sympathies,  we  meet  a  question  that  com- 
mands our  respectful  attention  :  Have  you  a  right  to  help  them  ? 
Here  is  a  rebellion  against  an  established  government.  Is 
not  our  interference  in  direct  disregard  of  Washington's  coun- 
sel against  intervention,  and  meddling  with  the  political  affairs 
of  other  nations  ?  Is  not  this  just  what  we  so  much  censured  in 
Englishmen  during  our  recent  struggle  ?  I  first  reply  b}^  stat- 
ing what  ground  we  do  not  take.  It  is  true,  the  doctrine  of 
non-intervention,  as  interpreted  by  European  practice,  is  a 
nose  of  wax ;  it  is  true  that  this  very  government  of  Turkey 
over  Crete  is  a  most  detestable  specimen  of  intervention,  an 
abominable  sacrifice  of  the  weak  to  the  interests  of  the  strong, 
a  barbarous  power  established  by  Christian  governments  over 
a  Christian  people  ;  it  is  true  that  we  regard  the  whole  sys- 
tem called  the    balance  of  power  "as  an  outrage  and  disgrace 


15 


to  the  age  in  which  we  live.  But  we  vindicate  our  course  by 
none  of  these  considerations.  We  acknowledge  that  the  law 
of  nations  requires  a  political  recognition  of  every  de  facto 
goverument,  without  a  moral  scrutiny  into  its  origin.  Some 
might  say, ''Let  us  follow  our  generous  impulses,  and  leave  to 
the  Government  the  task  of  checking  us  if  we  go  too  far." 
But  that  is  not  American.  We  leave  that  policy  to  the  builders 
of  "  The  Alabama  "  and  the  blockade-runners.  We  are  not  un- 
der masters  and  spies:  we  control  the  Government;  instructing 
our  legislators,  forming  the  public  sentiment  that  guides  their 
action.  Our  business  is  to  keep  the  Government  right,  rather 
than  tempt  it  to  connive  at  wrong.  That  is  the  theory  of  re- 
publican politics. 

In  assembling  to-night,  we  are  indeed  indirectly  aiding  the 
insurrection  by  furnishing  the  insurgents  the  moral  aid  of  sym- 
pathy, and  by  diminishing  that  solicitude  for  their  exiled  fam- 
ihes,  which  would  so  far  enfeeble  them  as  fighting  men.  But 
there  are  rights  of  neutral  nations  as  well  as  of  belligerents  ; 
and,  in  the  legitimate  exercise  of  those  rights,  we  are  assem- 
bled to-night.  The  moral  purpose  of  this  meeting  is  legiti- 
mate. We  are  assembled  to  enter  our  protest,  and  offer  our 
remonstrance,  before  the  civilized  world,  against  the  original 
act  which  dismembered  and  denationalized  Greece,  and  placed 
the  Cretans  under  this  terrible  despotism.  It  may  be  too  late 
to  undo  what  has  been  done,  but  not  too  late  to  form  a  public 
conscience  which  even  selfish  diplomatists  must  respect.  The 
sufferings  of  this  unhappy  people,  trodden  under  the  iron 
heels  of  merciless  satraps,  are  the  necessary  and  foreseen  con- 
sequences of  the  arrangements  made  by  the  Allied  Powers 
after  the  Greek  Revolution.  In  making  this  protest,  we  are  vi- 
olating no  article  in  that  venerable  code,  the  law  of  nations.  We 
are  assembled  to  express  to  each  other  and  the  world,  and 
especially  to  our  suffering  brethren,  our  deep  fraternal  sym- 
pathy with  them  in  their  protracted  misery,  and  also  in  their 
fervent  desires  and  heroic  efforts  to  cast  off  the  vile  bondage 
to  which  they  have  been  subjected  by  the  selfish  policy  of 
stronger  nations. 

But  we  are  going  farther,  —  to  furnish  substantial  aid  ;  not 
any  thing,  however,  contraband  of  war.    We  send  no  arms  to 


16 


Crete,  but  food  to  Greece  ;  no  succor  to  the  army,  but  bread 
to  famishing  women  and  cliildren  in  another  country  than  that 
which  is  the  seat  of  war.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  determined,  in  the  case  of  "The  Commercen,"*  that  pro- 
visions destined  for  the  ordinary  use  of  life,  even  in  the  enemy's 
country,  were  not  contraband.  But  we  go  farther  than  this, 
and  maintain  that  Turkey  has  placed  herself  outside  the  pale 
of  civilized  nations ;  and  she  has  no  more  right  to  appeal  to 
the  international  law  to  which  they  mutually  submit  than  the 
Southern  rebels  have  to  plead  the  doctrines  of  that  Constitu- 
tion which  they  cast  to  the  winds,  disregarding  its  every  re- 
quirement for  themselves,  and  endeavoring  to  bind  us  by  its 
restrictions. 

There  is  one  light  in  which  it  is  painful  to  us  to  take  this 
ground.  There  are  Turkish  gentlemen.  We  have  a  repre- 
sentative at  the  court  of  the  Mussulman,  and  his  government 
is  represented  in  Washington ;  but  we  must  nevertheless  in- 
sist on  the  facts,  which  they  cannot  deny.  However  civilized 
and  cultivated  the  Sultan  and  his  courtiers  may  be,  their  very 
system  of  provincial  government  is  an  organized  system  of 
oppression,  violence,  and  robbery.  The  very  doctrines  of 
their  Koran,  and  of  their  leader  Mahomet,  make  them  unfit  to 
govern  Christian  races.  He  taught  them  that  heretics  have 
no  right  to  live  ;  and  their  inference  from  the  doctrine  is, 
that  any  thing  short  of  death  is  unmerited  mercy.  We  cannot 
admit,  that,  in  dealing  with  such  a  people,  we  are  bound  by  the 
laws  that  regulate  the  intercourse  of  Christian  nations.  We 
draw,  then,  this  line  of  distinction.  In  matters  purely  politi- 
cal, in  foreign  Christian  nations,  we  have  no  right  to  go  beyond 
the  expression  of  opinion ;  but,  with  moral  questions,  we  are 
bound  as  Christians  to  concern  ourselves,  and  to  act  as  well  as 
speak,  whether  they  arise  in  our  own  or  foreign  countries. 
And  with  barbarism  and  brutality  we  have  a  right  to  contend, 
wherever  in  God's  dominion  they  are  found.  And,  as  to  this 
Turkish  rule  in  Crete,  even  the  British  Government  has  been 
constrained,  it  is  said,  to  propose  a  Christian  governor  for  this 

*  1  Wheaton,  382,  as  quoted  in  Kent's  Com.  i.  140. 


17 


outraged  people,  as  she  has  discovered  that  a  pacha's  rule  is 
not  a  government. 

This  war  is  not  a  civilized  war,  but  a  war  of  savages.  To 
such  an  extent  is  this  true,  that  the  foreign  consuls  have  threat- 
ened to  resign  their  posts  if  it  continues  to  be,  what  they  de- 
nominate,"  a  war  of  wild  beasts;"  women  and  children,  and 
prisoners  of  war,  being  uniformly  massacred  by  the  conquering 
Turks. 


REMARKS  OF  REY.  DR.  HUNTINGTON. 


3Ir.  President,  —  Apart  from  the  duty  and  the  privilege 
presented  to  us  of  affording  relief  to  the  hunger  and  home- 
lessness  of  some  hundreds  or  thousands  of  sufferers  by  bodily 
destitution,  an  opportunity  is  here  set  open,  which  has  another 
kind,  if  not  a  higher  degree,  of  dignity.  It  is  more  than  proba- 
ble,  that,  in  ministering  to  the  persons  of  these  poor  islanders, 
we  are  at  the  same  time  doing  something  to  succor  a  national 
life,  and  are  helping  to  build  up,  out  of  ready  materials,  a  king- 
dom of  free  men.  Would  it  be  strange,  if  in  the  mind  of 
Americans,  whose  own  national  life  may  be  said  to  have  been 
born  of  an  instinct  for  independence,  this  of  itself  should  prove 
to  be  a  motive  of  commanding  power  for  prompt  and  munifi- 
cent liberality  ?  The  real  problem  in  Crete  appears  to  be  the 
liberating  of  a  large  and  thriving  though  insular  population, 
to  be  formed  ultimately  into  a  component  element  in  the  con- 
stitution of  a  future  Greek  empire  or  repubhc,  commensurate 
with  the  capacities  and  traditions  of  that  remarkable  race. 
As  must  be  well  known  to  many  in  this  assembly,  the  Greek 
people  have  retained  through  all  these  centuries  of  political 
change  many  of  their  best  characteristics.  They  are  intelli- 
gent ;  they  are  proverbially  brave ;  their  love  of  liberty  is  a 
passion,  —  a  passion  profound  as  the  philosophy  that  Plato 
taught  them,  and  ardent  as  their  blood.    Of  their  intellectual 

3 


18 


superiority,  it  is  quite  true  that  its  modern  manifestations  are 
not  in  the  same  proportion,  or  on  the  same  scale,  or  in  the 
same  lines  of  inventive  and  original  thought,  as  in  the  days 
of  Pericles,  or  of  the  great  orators,  epic  and  tragic  poets,  ar- 
tists, and  statesmen,  that  went  before  and  came  after  him. 
Doubtless  the  light  has  been  partly  dimmed,  and  the  vigor  has 
been  partly  depressed,  under  these  ages  of  external  disability 
and  disadvantage.  Who  can  wonder  at  that?  But  there  are 
other  forms  of  mental  energy  and  activity  besides  the  distinc- 
tive accomplishments  of  scholarship  and  jurisprudence  and 
the  creations  of  the  elegant  arts.  Even  these  are  not  by  any 
means  wholly  wanting  among  the  better  classes  of  the  descend- 
ants of  those  great  masters  living  in  our  own  day.  In  the 
cultivation  of  language,  in  the  sciences,  and,  what  is  a  great 
deal  better,  in  a  liberal  and  comprehensive  appreciation  of  the 
benefits  of  a  general  diffusion  of  knowledge,  with  plans  of 
popular  education,  Athens  is  even  now  the  centre  of  a  vast  in- 
fluence; having,  in  fact,  not  many  peers  among  the  cities  of  the 
Old  World  or  the  New.  There  are  twice  as  many  students 
now  at  Athens  as  at  Cambridge.  The  press,  the  ballot,  the 
judicial  tribunals  with  trial  by  jury,  are  free.  No  mistake  can 
be  greater  than  to  suppose,  that,  in  that  "garden  of  great  intel- 
lects,"—  borrowing  a  phrase  even  more  descriptive  of  the 
place  than  of  the  British  Oxford,  to  which  its  author  applied 
it,  —  the  ruins  of  ancient  grandeur  are  the  only  attraction.  I 
remember  perfectly  the  fresh  enthusiasm  with  which  the  la- 
mented President  Felton  —  whose  earnest  voice  and  genial 
face  would  certainly  be  heard  and  seen  in  the  chief  place 
among  us  here  to-night  if  Providence  had  spared  him  to 
learning  and  to  the  multitude  of  friends  that  loved  him  — 
used  always  to  describe  the  ripe  culture  and  advanced  cur- 
riculum of  studies  in  the  Athenian  National  University,  often 
reading  letters  from  his  correspondents  in  the  several  chairs 
in  proof  of  both ;  and  it  was  the  opinion,  I  believe,  of  one  of 
the  most  observing  and  competent  of  our  New-England  trav- 
ellers abroad,  not  long  ago  deceased,  —  Mr.  George  Sumner, — 
after  an  examination  on  the  spot,  that  the  present  public  edu- 
cational system  of  Greece  takes  rank  with  the  very  foremost 
in  the  world. 


19 


But  it  is  not  merely,  as  I  was  just  observing,  in  fashions  of 
eminence  distinctively  literary,  that  the  intellect  of  the  modern 
Greeks  discovers  its  quickness  and  power.  Sail  from  one  sea- 
port to  another  along  all  the  north-eastern  and  eastern  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean,  with  the  Archipelago,  the  Dardanelles, 
and  the  Bosphorus ;  travel  from  Trieste  to  Alexandria ;  and, 
wherever  you  find  Greek  commerce  or  traffic,  you  find  not 
only  a  business  forecast  and  shrewdness  that  are  a  match  for 
the  liveliest  wits  of  the  West,  but,  in  many  instances,  remarka- 
ble powers  of  combination  and  generalization,  such  as  make 
up  everywhere  the  master-merchant  as  distinguished  from  the 
ordinary  trader.  I  suppose  there  are  gentlemen  in  this  hall 
that  have  had  commercial  transactions  in  those  waters,  who 
would  say,  that,  all  over  the  Levant,  the  ablest  bankers,  capi- 
talists, and  leaders  of  enterprise,  are  of  that  sagacious,  ver- 
satile, penetrating  nation ;  that  the  best  thinking  in  the  East 
is  done  by  Greek  heads ;  and,  in  short,  that,  of  South-eastern 
Europe  and  Western  Asia,  Greece  is  the  brain. 

Now,  when  you  add  to  this  trait  a  courage  that  is  unsur- 
passed in  the  annals  of  heroism,  illustrated  in  these  recent  en- 
gagements and  defences  in  Crete,  and  a  love  of  liberty,  that, 
while  it  is  inborn  and  inbred,  yet  evidently  holds  life  itself 
cheap  as  the  price  of  that  liberty,  it  surely  becomes  conceiva- 
ble, that  by  and  by,  out  of  these  thoughtful  and  patriotic  and 
progressive  communities,  scattered  here  and  there  in  all  the 
principal  seats  of  population,  a  rallying-cry  will  be  heard,  a 
stronger  movement  of  union  and  organization  will  take  place  ; 
and  so,  when  the  sick  man  "  dies,  Europe  may  witness  the 
establishment  there  of  a  great  Christian  commonwealth.  It 
may  miscarry ;  it  may  be  postponed ;  it  may  fail  altogether ; 
this  spirited  uprising  in  Crete  to  throw  off  the  Moslem  des- 
,  potism  may  contribute  nothing  to  it ;  it  may  be  crushed  :  but 
there  are  minds  in  that  part  of  the  world,  Italy  included,  to 
which  the  insurrection  means  nothing  less.  And  it  is  for  us 
to  say  whether  it  is  either  magnanimous  or  manly  to  let  the 
chances  of  success  weigh  much  in  the  giving  or  withholding 
of  our  sympathy.  The  Greek  Cretans  are  worth  saving  to 
freedom.  There  is  something  very  touching  and  very  affect- 
ing in  the  attitude  of  a  struggling  and  honorable  cause  im- 


20 


ploring  kindness  from  an  older  and  stronger  and  prosperous 
sister,  that  has  been  a  winner  in  the  battle  of  human  rights. 
Have  we  fought  that  battle  out  twice,  Mr.  President,  for  our- 
selves only,  or  in  part  also  for  the  world,  and  for  our  kindred, 
in  whatever  continent  or  corner  of  it,  who  ask  and  need  our 
help? 

To  me,  I  confess,  there  is  a  pecuh'ar  promise  in  the  signs  of 
this  Hellenic  revolution  or  consolidation,  because  it  seems  to 
hold  in  it  the  principles  of  a  sound  and  legitimate  civilization. 
It  is  indigenous ;  it  strikes  its  roots  in  a  native  soil ;  it  rises 
on  the  Past,  and  that  not  a  dead  Past  burying  its  dead,  but  a 
Past  that  survives  and  lives  in  the  life  of  to-day.  I  believe 
that  is  a  portion  of  the  philosophy  of  a  genuine  national  devel- 
opment. It  must  be  part  and  parcel  with  all  elements  of  cli- 
mate, geography,  memory,  hope,  experience,  association,  wor- 
ship, on  the  soil.  It  is  a  growth,  not  a  fabrication  ;  an  organic 
life,  not  a  mechanism.  The  very  juices  of  the  ground,  the 
shadows  of  the  hills,  the  music  of  the  streams  or  the  ocean, 
the  restlessness  of  the  winds,  go  into  it.  No  matter  if  Greece 
seemed  to  die,  and  to  be  living,  Greece  no  more  :  it  comes  to 
life  again.  In  the  wonderful  language  of  that  land  of  beauty, 
there  is  a  singularly  beautiful  verb,  which  signifies,  in  a  single 
term,  the  putting-forth  of  new  verdure  in  a  thing,  like  the 
green  leaves  on  the  branches  of  a  tree  in  spring  after  the  dry- 
ness and  bareness  of  winter.  St.  Paul  uses  it  to  praise  the 
reviving  charity  of  the  Christians  at  Philippi.  It  must  be  the 
hope  and  the  prayer,  I  think,  of  every  true  republican  heart 
in  these  States,  that  the  sense  of  that  figure  may  be  realized, 
and  that  the  powers  and  liberties  of  those  oppressed  and 
martyred  patriots  may  put  out  bud  and  leaf,  and  flower  and 
fruit,  and  flourish  again. 

In  the  comparison  of  the  two  contending  parties,  there  can  . 
be  no  room  for  hesitation.  In  spite  of  his  monotheism,  the 
Turk  is  essentially  a  barbarian.  The  softening,  refining,  ele- 
vating, and  expansive  influences  of  the  catholic  spirit  of 
Christianity  have  not  reached  him:  he  rejects  them.  The 
sword  is  the  symbol  of  his  religion,  the  instrument  of  his 
statesmanship,  and,  I  may  say,  the  delight  of  his  despotism. 
Can  it  be  wondered  at,  if,  in  this  stout-hearted  little  island,  he 


21 


starves  and  slaughters  infants  and  their  mothers,  suffocates 
hundreds  of  peasants  in  caves,  sets  fire  to  olive-trees  and  vil- 
lages, desolates  the  face  of  the  earth?  Doubtless  it  is,  to 
some  extent,  a  war  of  faiths  and  creeds.  But  in  that  issue  I 
am  sure  we  shall  all  be  agreed  as  to  which  class  of  disciples 
we  shall  first  try  to  feed  and  clothe.  We  may  pray,  we  can 
pray  heartily,  for  the  Turk,  that,  with  other  wanderers,  the 
Great  Shepherd  would  "  fetch  him  home  to  his  flock ; "  but 
we  must  stand  by  the  lambs  of  that  flock  when  he  becomes 
the  wolf  to  ravage  it.  Beyond  question,  there  are  grave  and 
conspicuous  moral  faults  in  these  Greeks.  Temptation  and 
wrong  have  wrought  their  mischief  upon  them  ;  but  they 
have  never  lost  the  truth  of  revelation,  and  they  keep  the 
grace  of  devotion.  Ever  since  the  apostle  who  understood 
them  so  well,  landing  at  the  PirtBus,  and  bringing  with  him  the 
morning  light  of  the  new  religion  to  spread  it  over  pagan 
Europe,  pronounced  them,  at  Mars  Hill,  "  too  superstitious," 
or,  more  exactly,  too  indiscriminately  religious,  they  have 
been  easy  to  believe.  We  remember,  too,  that  it  was  when 
Greeks  came  seeking  him,  and  inquiring  into  his  teachings, 
just  on  the  eve  of  his  suffering,  that  the  Saviour  uttered  that 
prophetic  exclamation  of  a  closing  earthly  ministry,  ''The 
hour  is  come  that  the  Son  of  man  should  be  glorified."  Nor 
can  the  Christian  scholar  forget  that  it  was  in  their  musical 
tongue  that  the  Eastern  fathers  wrote  ;  that  the  eloquence  of 
Chrysostom,  pleading  for  the  poor  of  Antioch  and  Constanti- 
nople, has  resounded  through  Christendom;  nay,  that  the 
Lord  and  his  evangelists  and  apostlea  spoke  and  recorded 
the  words  of  life  that  abide  forever.  I  notice  in  the  news- 
papers that  the  military  oath  of  these  Cretan  volunteers  is 
administered  by  the  priest ;  and  that  each  soldier,  while  he 
swears  to  fight  for  the  union  of  Crete  with  the  kingdom  of 
Greece,  vows  to  protect  the  person  and  property  of  every 
Christian  everywhere. 

Of  the  merits  and  fortunes  of  the  contest  thus  far,  you  are 
all  informed  as  well  as  despatches  liable  to  constant  hostile 
manipulation  and  distortion  permit.  The  government  of  the 
Porte  has  levied  a  tax  for  the  support  of  the  war  -on  Greek 
subjects.    It  boasts  of  "  concessions,"  which  impartial  Euro- 


22 


pean  contemporaries  pronounce  the  bitterest  irony  ever  exhib- 
ited by  a  diplomacy  without  bowels  to  a  despoiled  people. 
Lord  Palmerston  declared  in  the  House  of  Commons,  nearly 
forty  years  ago,  that  the  Turks  had  no  rightful  possession  in 
Crete.  I  have  seen  statements  from  files  of  an  Athenian 
newspaper  of  dates  as  far  back  as  last  May  and  June,  show- 
ing, in  reply  to  contrary  assertions  of  the  Governor-General  of 
the  Ottoman  Government,  that  the  Cretans  respectfully  ap- 
pealed to  the  head  of  the  empire  before  resorting  to  arms. 
The  Turks  took  the  oflensive  about  the  last  of  August.  A 
few  weeks  ago,  there  were  said  to  be  twenty-five  thousand  in- 
surgents acting  on  the  defence  in  the  mountains  that  intersect 
the  island.  They  are  from  all  classes  of  the  people,  —  mer- 
chants, students,  professors,  artisans,  peasants, —  mostly  ill  clad 
and  ill  armed,  but  of  indomitable  resolution,  and  a  most  de- 
termined hope.  They  cite  the  routing  of  Napoleon's  veterans, 
victorious  on  all  the  battle-fields  of  Europe,  by  the  peasantry 
of  Spain,  with  rusty  muskets  and  clasp-knives.  They  do  not 
ask  now  for  equipments  or  weapons  of  war.  The  General 
Assembly  in  September  petitioned  only  for  steamers  to  carry 
the  women  and  children  to  some  safe  retreat.  We  are  pro- 
posing only  to  do  for  them,  our  friends,  what  Christ  bids  us  do 
for  foes :  ^'  If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him."  The  balance 
of  European  powers  is  too  delicately  adjusted  to  allow  much 
of  even  that  harmless  sort  of  benefaction  through  any  official 
channels.  But  Englishmen  are  already  before  us :  they  have 
appointed  a  committee  of  relief,  with  a  large  number  of  the 
nobility  and  members  of  Parliament  serving  upon  it. 

Unquestionably,  it  is  present  to  the  thoughts  of  many  here, 
who  have  reflected  on  the  matter,  that  there  may  be  questions 
of  international  precedent,  if  not  of  obligation,  involved  in 
some  of  its  bearings,  such  as  to  raise  a  doubt  how  far  we  can 
extend  mercy  to  the  Greek,  and  not  commit  a  breach  of  comity 
or  equity  with  the  Turk.  Without  enlarging  much  in  that 
direction,  let  me  only  say,  that,  to  any  misgivings  on  that  score, 
two  considerations  seem  to  suggest  themselves  in  reply.  The 
one  is,  that  while,  in  whatever  action  we  may  take  here,  we 
are  subject  to  regulation  by  the  law  of  our  own  Government, 
we  are  not  acting  as  ofiicers  of  that  Government,  but  as 


citizens;  or  rather  we  are  not  diplomatists  and  political  rep- 
resentatives at  all,  but  simply  men. 

"  Before  man  made  us  citizens,  great  Nature  made  us  men 

and  that  "  Nature  "  is  God.  The  Government,  we  may  pre- 
sume, is  competent  to  take  care  of  its  etiquette  with  its  non- 
intervention policy,  and  to  take  care  of  us  if  we  become 
transgressors :  in  other  words,  we  shall  be  restrained  from 
mischief  by  law  if  we  venture  too  much  in  charity.  But  by 
all  means,  in  the  name  of  human  brotherhood,  let  us  make  the 
venture;  because  the  second  consideration  is,  that,  around 
the  domain  of  legal  precedent  and  prescription,  there  spreads, 
there  always  has  spread,  and  always  will,  a  margin  for  the 
large  constructions  and  grand  liberties  of  love.  All  honor  to 
"  the  powers  that  be ; "  all  due  obedience  to  the  law  that  is 
the  mother  of  our  peace  and  joy : "  not  less,  but  more  of 
that,  is  one  of  the  chief  needs  of  our  people.  But  there  are 
two  codes  of  that  law,  as  there  were  two  tables  of  the  statutes 
at  Sinai.  Both  are  "  ordained  of  God."  The  one  is  written 
on  our  hearts  as  legibly  as  the  other  in  the  books.  It  would 
be  a  wrong  to  the  latter,  and  to  Him  whose  authority  it  rep- 
resents, if  we  deny  or  disobey  the  first.  Till  the  limits  be- 
tween what  nations  may  do  and  may  not  do  for  one  another 
are  more  clearly  defined  than  they  have  been  yet,  we  shall  be 
justified  in  running  some  noble  risks  for  mercy's  sake.  How 
preposterous  to  pretend  that  only  when  the  elements  of  Nature 
have  been  unkind,  only  when  frost  and  drought  blight  the 
harvest,  only  when  Nature's  fire  devours,  or  floods  drown,  or 
seasons  disappoint,  we  may  send  the  freights  of  our  good  will 
across  the  sea ;  but  that  when  the  cruelty  is  man's,  when  a 
human  oppressor  blasts  the  fields,  when  it  is  a  Turk's  torch 
that  sets  the  fire,  or  a  Turk's  axe  that  plays  the  famine's  part, 
and  cuts  down  the  vineyard  and  the  olive-garden,  then  we 
must  fold  our  hands,  and  keep  our  corn  and  wine  and  oil  to 
ourselves!  God  forbid!  Not  so  reads  the  original  and 
blessed  charter  of  our  human  compassion,  older  than  treaties, 
and  never  annulled ;  and  not  so  reads  the  parable  of  the  Good 
Samaritan,  which  interprets  and  applies  that  proclamation. 
The  way  is  perfectly  open  for  this  work  of  good.    No  right 


will  be  violated,  no  pledge  broken,  no  national  friendship  that 
is  worth  having  disturbed.  On  the  contrary,  a  much  higher 
friendship  would  be  insulted,  and  many  lofty  inspirations 
would  have  to  be  quenched,  if  it  were  refused. 

Very  simple,  therefore,  dear  friends,  very  easy,  very  natural, 
it  would  seem,  very  right  and  comforting  both  to  giver  and 
receiver,  will  the  office  of  your  Christian  charity  be.  Perhaps 
it  will  be  only  the  opening  of  a  few  baskets  of  bread  for  a  few 
hungry  mouths.  All  charity  is  sacred;  and  this  would  be  too 
like  that  which  sanctified  the  hill-sides  of  Galilee  to  be 
despised.  But  perhaps  it  will  also  grow  to  be  the  reaching- 
forth  of  the  hand  of  a  great  nation's  fellowship  to  another 
nation  once  great,  destined  to  be  great  once  more,  and  great 
now  in  most  of  the  real  attributes  of  greatness.  Perhaps  it 
will  be  a  generous  illustration  of  what  seems  to  be  one  of  the 
glories  of  our  times,  wrought  out  by  a  thousand  humane 
causes,  —  the  neighborhood  and  even  the  brotherhood  of 
nations.  Perhaps  we  shall  be  doing  something  to  encourage 
free-minded  men,  free  in  thought,  free  in  feeling,  free  by  the 
legislation  of  Heaven,  free  in  every  thing  but  an  accidental 
and  temporary  tyranny  hindering  the  civil  regeneration  that 
would  embody  that  freedom  in  institutions  and  laws.  At  least, 
we  shall  assure  them  that  freemen  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
remember  them,  and  care  for  them,  and  offer  them  a  New- 
Year's  blessing  and  God-speed,  in  the  name  of  humanity  and 
its  Father  in  heaven. 

Hearty  applause  was  bestowed  upon  the  expression  of  Dr. 
Huntington's  sentiments  and  the  considerations  advanced  in 
his  address.  Wendell  Phillips  was  then  presented,  and  received 
his  usual  indorsement  by  a  Boston  audience.  He  addressed 
the  meeting  in  the  following  language  :  — 


25 


REMARKS  OF  WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 


Mr.  Chairman,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  We  are  here  to 
consider  the  question  of  Cretan  relief.  Who  are  the  Cre- 
tans? and  what  is  the  question  of  the  relief  of  Crete?  Five 
thousand  miles  off,  an  island  not  as  large  as  our  own  little 
Massachusetts  has  risen  in  arms  to  claim  its  rights :  not  pri- 
marily political  rights ;  not,  first,  independence,  legislation, 
ballots ;  but  the  right  to  earn  bread  in  peace  ;  the  right  to 
worship  God  in  safety;  the  right  of  woman  to  her  purity;  the 
right  of  the  child  to  school  and  to  home ;  the  bare  human 
rights  pertaining  to  human  nature  everywhere,  under  all 
circumstances,  —  God-given,  —  which  no  power  has  a  right 
under  any  circumstances  to  invade.  [Applause.]  This  is 
what  Crete  rises  to  claim.  What  method  does  she  take  to 
claim  it?  I  should  say,  in  the  first  place,  no  need  for  us  to  ask. 
How  long  shall  a  man  submit  to  the  denial  of  such  rights? 
My  answer  is.  Just  so  long  as,  and  up  to  that  point  where, 
he  has  an  honorable  chance  to  escape  from  it.  [Applause.] 
The  moment  Nature  and  God  put  within  his  reach  the  power  of 
deliverance,  it  is  not  only  his  right,  but  it  is  his  duty,  to  him- 
self, to  his  children,  to  the  world,  to  tear  the  chain  off  his  limbs. 
It  is  for  him  to  choose  whether  this  shall  be  by  argument,  by 
appeal  to  the  good  sense  and  the  good  heart  of  his  oppressor, 
or  by  arms.  We  have  no  right  to  dictate.  The  choice  lies 
with  the  victim,  knowing  how  much  he  has  suffered,  how  much 
he  can  do,  and  the  chances  that  are  before  him;  and  when 
man  rises  anywhere,  the  world  over,  to  claim  these  rights,  and 
is  willing  to  accord  to  others  what  he  claims  for  himself,  by  all 
the  considerations  that  make  human  brotherhood,  —  one  God, 
one  blood,  and  one  future,  —  he  may  claim  of  his  fellow-man 
sympathy  and  aid.  [Applause.]  No  form  of  government,  no 
parchment,  however  sacred,  has  any  right  to  stand  between 
man  and  man  in  such  emergency. 

This  is  a  mere  abstract  statement  of  the  relations,  as  I  con- 
ceive, between  a  man  and  his  fellow,  the  world  over.  But 

4 


26 


what  is  Crete  ?  What  is  this  island  that  sends  its  claim  for 
sympathy  half  round  the  globe?  It  is  an  island  peopled  dis- 
tinctively by  one  race.  That  race  has  a  common  nationality. 
No  part  of  it  has  ever  allowed  oppression  or  defeat  to  sunder 
that  nationality.  All  Greece  —  Greece  proper  and  all  her 
islands  —  for  five  hundred  years  has  never  left  one  generation 
without  a  protest  of  arms  or  of  argument  against  the  denial 
of  its  rights  by  the  force  of  surrounding  nations.  Like  its 
own  legend  of  the  giant  under  the  sister  island,  Sicily,  of  the 
Mediterranean,  there  has  never  been  a  moment  when  Crete  or 
the  Morea  has  suffered  in  silence.  Their  protest,  like  his  re- 
sistance, has  unceasingly  rocked  the  Continent,  or  lashed  the 
Archipelago  into  storms.  They  may  claim,  that  at  no  time, 
within  the  history  of  man,  has  the  consent  of  the  Greek  race 
ever  been  given  to  the  power  coercing  them.  It  is  such 
a  community  that  comes  to  us  protesting  against  the  sword, 
without  one  element  that  in  our  philosophy  goes  to  make  up 
a  government.  Their  nationality  unbroken,  they  have  sub- 
mitted only  to  absolute  necessity  of  silence  when  worn  out  by 
struggle  and  bloodshed.  Against  what  have  they  been 
struggling?  Against  a  faith,  the  fundamental  principle  of 
which  is,  that  every  thing  which  dissents  from  it  has  no  right 
to  live.  Crete  defies  to-day  a  despotism  which  is  but  another 
name  for  a  faith  which  claims  the  right  to  exterminate  every 
thing  that  does  not  believe  its  own  creed.  It  is  not  a  pure 
despotism  like  that  which  existed  in  feudal  Europe  and  in 
ancient  times ;  but  it  is  something  which  calls  itself  a  state, 
founded  on  the  principle  that  one  portion  of  the  human  race 
has  no  right  to  live.  Am  I  sinning  against  American  ethics, 
against  Christian  ethics,  when  I  say  that  a  power  which  denies 
the  right  of  the  Greeks  even  to  life,  has  no  right,  in  the  eye 
of  God  and  justice,  to  assert  its  authority  over  races  and 
realms  that  have  for  two  thousand  years  denied  its  creed?  If 
that  is  not  justice,  then  one  part  of  the  human  race,  under  the 
mask  of  government,  has  a  right  to  exterminate  the  other. 
And  yet  this  is  the  form  of  government  against  which  Crete 
has  maintained  her  perpetual  protest;  and  though  seeming 
peace,  under  the  guise  of  vast  taxes  and  cruel  assaults  on  life, 
honor,  comfort,  prosperity,  permits  to  the  Christian  population 


27 


the  toleration  oF  an  existence,  yet  the  moment  the  sliglitest 
arm  lifted  agajnst  government  justifies  the  Turk  in  falling  back 
upon  the  Koran,  his  war  of  extermination  is  not  exceptional  : 
it  is  the  cardinal  constitution  of  his  realm.  Remember,  then, 
we  friends  of  Greece  are  not  asking  for  the  sympathy  of  the 
Christian  and  civilized  world  for  one  section  of  a  nation  con- 
tending for  political  rights  against  another  ;  but  we  are  asking, 
for  a  race  unalterably  Christian,  never  divided,  never  fairly 
conquered,  the  liberty  to  rise,  until  there  is  no  hope  in  rising, 
against  a  despotism  concealed  behind  a  creed  which  not  only 
tolerates,  but  orders,  the  extermination  of  man,  woman,  and 
child.  For  one,  I  am  ready  to  say,  in  the  face  of  all  civiliza- 
tion, that  I  see  no  right  in  any  Christian  nation  to  acknowledge 
such  alliance  and  friendship  for  a  power  resting  on  such  a 
claim  as  will  prevent  any  of  its  citizens  from  stretching  forth 
their  hands,  with  any  amount  or  quality  of  aid,  to  the  victims 
who  rise  up  against  such  oppression.  [Applause.]  I  can  see 
a  reason  in  international  law,  why,  if  France  should  rise  against 
her  government,  or  Germany  against  hers,  bad  as  we  think 
them,  there  might  be  a  limit  beyond  which  expediency 
and  the  law  of  Christendom  would  not  permit  us  to 
step.  But  the  Turk  is  only  encamped  in  Europe.  He  has 
never  yet,  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  principles  of  justice  and 
law,  advanced  the  first  claim  to  recognition  as  an  equal  in  the 
sisterhood  of  nations.  That  power  which  undertakes  to  starve 
women  and  children ;  to  deny  to  the  victim  race  the  right  to 
appeal  to  its  own  tribunals ;  which  says  to  the  Christian, 
"  Your  faith  shuts  you  out  from  testifying  to  injury  before  the 
law  ;  "  which  at  the  first  indication  of  resistance  exterminates  a 
population,  —  I  contend,  has  no  rightful  existence  as  a  gov- 
ernment. [Applause.]  Write  the  word  Scio  on  the  Turkish 
record,  and  all  Christianity  and  all  law  deny  the  right  of  such 
a  power  to  be  recognized  as  a  government,  in  the  ordinary 
European  sense  of  that  term.  [Applause.]  Recollect,  in 
the  second  year  of  the  old  conflict,  which  began  in  1821, 
the  prosperous,  fruitful,  happy  Island  of  Scio,  with  some 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  inhabitants,  herself  quiet  and 
neutral,  was  visited  by  about  two  or  three  thousand  patriots, 
and  some  resistance  was  made  to  Turkish  law :  upon  which 


28 


the  government  let  loose  upon  the  island  an  army  of  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  men  ;  and,  in  one  or  two  months,  but 
nine  hundred  living  human  beings  of  that  population  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  were  left  upon  the  land.  Only 
forty  thousand  women  and  children,  sold  into  slavery,  survived 
of  the  whole  population:  the  rest  were  butchered  on  their  own 
hearths.  Is  that  what  civilization  considers  war  ?  Are  there 
any  rights  of  belligerency  to  be  acknowledged  to  such  a 
power  ? 

In  the  Social  Scientific  Congress  at  Ghent,  in  1863, 
M.  Clamageran,  a  distinguished  French  writer  on  political  ques- 
tions, speaking  of  the  rule  of  acknowledging  belligerents, 
said,  'MVhat  shall  be  tlie  criterion?  Hitherto  it  has  been 
the  fact  which  has  given  birth  to  the  right.  If  the  insurrec- 
tion lasts,  the  insurgents  become  belh'gerents ;  that  is,  by  the 
fact.  It  is  time  to  substitute,  for  this,  justice  and  right.  These 
are  the  principles:  First,  there  must  be  oppression,  and  it 
must  be  manifested  by  the  protests  of  the  oppressed,  who 
must  have  exhausted  pacific  means.  Deny  this  rule,  and  you 
consecrate  injustice  and  anarchy."  This,  I  contend,  should  be 
the  American  doctrine  ;  and  the  time  will  come  when  the  law  of 
Christendom  will  acknowledge  it. 

In  the  light  of  this  claim,  look  briefly  at  the  history  of 
Crete.  You  recollect,  when  the  Greeks  rose  in  1821,  they 
sustahied  a  nine-j^ears'  conflict  against  the  Turkish  Empire, 
assisted,  as  Dr.  Howe  has  related  to  us,  by  the  strength  of 
Egypt.  In  1827  occurred  that  battle  of  Navarino  to  which 
he  has  made  reference.  Shortly  after,  the  Allied  Powers 
made  the  Porte  recognize  the  independence  of  Greece  as  a 
nation;  but  at  the  same  time,  by  their  own  will,  they  under- 
took to  say  to  Crete,  —  a  portion  of  the  Greek  nation  since  his- 
tory began,  lying  right  upon  the  coast  of  the  Morea,  neces- 
sary to  that  kingdom  for  defence,  recognized  as  such  by 
Palmerston  himself,  an  island  that  had  maintained  the  most 
desperate  conflict  for  nine  years,  writing  the  record  in  the 
blood  of  their  women  and  children  as  well  as  their  soldiers,  — 
the  Allies  compelled  Crete  to  submit  again  to  Moslem  control, 
as  an  appendage  to  Egypt;  and  it  was  afterwards  restored  to 
the  Porte.    Crete  is  no  party  to  such  oppression.    In  1833, 


2i) 

in  1842,  in  1858,  she  made  an  armed  resistance.  In  1865,  she 
began  a  constiUitional  resistance.  Having*  suffered  every 
thing  humanity  could  suffer  in  her  previous  risings,  the  inhab- 
itants assembled  in  legitimate  council,  and  sent  to  the  Porte 
their  respectful  protest  against  the  constant  oppressions 
of  Mahometan  law.  This  was  right,  —  the  only  justifiable 
course.  No  man  is  authorized  in  appealing  to  arms  till  he  has 
exhausted  all  peaceful  means,  if  such  are  possible.  Nothing 
but  argument  will  change  opinion  ;  everywhere,  even  in  des- 
potisms, opinion  bears  sway  in  the  last  resort.  Victor  Hugo 
says,  The  flash  of  the  sabre  is  a  moment's  gleam  :  right  is  an 
eternal  ray."  True  ;  but  sometimes  the  heavens  are  so  dark, 
the  only  light  we  get  is  the  sword's  gleam.  Barbarism  bows 
to  nothing  else,  knows  no  other  logic.  The  John  Bright  for 
Turkey  is  the  sword.  Instead  of  answering  this  protest  in 
the  way  known  to  constitutional  governments,  the  Porte  let 
loose  upon  the  island  his  native  and  Egyptian  troops,  as  in  the 
previous  contest,  and,  as  Dr.  Howe  has  told  us,  desolated  the 
island  from  end  to  end,  smothered  the  inhabitants  in  caves,  and 
murdered  every  thing  taken  prisoner,  —  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren :  no  distinction  of  combatant  and  non-combatant,  of  age 
or  sex  or  profession  ;  every  thing  put  to  the  sword.  This  is 
the  history  of  the  contest  up  to  the  present  moment. 

Let  me  read  to  you  a  spirit-stirring  document,  —  the  de- 
cree of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Cretans,  Sept.  2,  1866, 
after  the  Turks  commenced  this  system  of  extermination:  — 

"  Faithful  to  the  oath  taken  in  1821,  and  to  the  will  of  the 
whole  people,  who  desire  the  union  and  independence  of  the 
entire  Hellenic  race,  it  is  decreed, — 

"  I.  The  sovereignty  of  Turkey  is  forever  abolished  in  the 
whole  territory  of  Crete  and  the  places  appurtenant  to  it. 

"  II.  The  indissoluble  and  eternal  union  of  Crete  and  of  all 
the  places  appurtenant  to  it,  under  the  sceptre  of  his  Majesty 
George  I.,  is  hereby  proclaimed. 

HI.  The  execution  of  the  present  decree  is  confided  to 
the  valor  of  the  generous  people  of  Crete,  to  the  patriotism  of 
our  brother  Hellenes  wherever  residing,  and  to  the  liberality 
of  all  Philhellenes,  as  well  as  to  the  powerful  mediation  of 


30 


the  great  nations  protecting  and  guaranteeing  it,  and  to  the 
protection  of  Almighty  God." 

This  is  the  decree  of  a  nation  rising  into  existence;  and  it 
comes  to  us  as  to  every  other  people,  making  appeal  to  the 
world  for  sympathy  in  its  claim,  not  of  political  and  disputed 
rights,  but  of  the  inalienable,  indisputable,  and  undeniable 
rights  of  human  nature  itself.  [Loud  applause.]  Crete  does 
not  come  to  us  asking  that  we  will  help  her  make  a  republic 
against  a  constitutional  monarchy,  but  that  we  will  help  men 
striving  to  protect  their  natural  rights  to  bread,  worship,  home, 
education,  the  ordinary  safety  of  life  and  hearth,  against  a 
dominion  which  denies  them  all. 

Why  should  we  do  it,  particularly  in  this  case  ?  For  one,  I 
feel  especially  drawn  to  this  population,  because  of  the  ex- 
ceeding vitality  of  the  blood  which  it  represents.  No  matter 
how  many  races,  either  as  conquerors  or  as  emigrants,  have 
taken  up  their  abode  in  the  Morea  or  on  the  islands;  no  matter 
what  language  or  custom  they  have  carried  there  :  every  thing 
has  been  absorbed  and  converted  into  Grecian,  under  the 
overwhelming  power  and  vitality  of  the  Greek  blood.  Like 
the  Saxon  in  England  and  the  Saxon  here,  no  matter  what 
race,  no  matter  what  language,  no  matter  what  custom,  enters 
our  limits,  Normans,  Celts,  Latins,  all  are  absorbed  and 
digested  into  a  nation  whose  normal  character  and  law  are 
still  Saxon.  The  Chinese  exhibit  the  same  wonderful 
pertinacity  of  life.  No  matter  what  wave  of  conquest  rolls 
over  them  in  their  history  of  centuries,  re-appearing  above 
the  subsiding  deluge  comes  ever  uppermost  the  unchangeable 
form  of  the  original  Chinese  blood  and  civilization.  Now,  by 
virtue  of  the  right  God  has  given  to  what  is  lasting  amid 
human  changes,  such  races  have  a  right  to  live.  [Applause.] 
Every  thing  disappears  before  them,  because  God  has  given 
them  the  inherent  forces  which  make  them  a  power,  and  would 
make  them  a  blessing,  in  the  world.  The  world  owes  a  recog- 
nition to  Greece.  Greece,  since  the  first  page  of  history,  no 
matter  what  her  changes,  has  never  ceased  to  be  Greece. 
That  is  one  claim.  Secondly,  she  has  another  claim  upon  us, 
that,  in  every  little  privilege  which  events  have  accorded  her, 
she  has  shown  a  wonderful  recuperative  power  against  all 


31 


previous  oppression.  /  I  recognize  well  that  rule  which  I  think 
covers  all  cases  of  oppressor  and  his  victim  ;  that  though  it 
may  be  true,  as  Homer  said, 

"  Whatever  day 
Makes  man  a  slave  takes  half  his  worth  away," 

it  is  still  more  true,  that  whatever  day  makes  man  a  tyrant 
takes  all  his  worth  away.  [Applause.]  Oppression  does 
more  harm  to  the  oppressor  than  to  its  victim.  That  is  the 
reason  why,  with  all  his  faults  of  necessity  and  circumstance, 
the  Greek,  rising  from  these  centuries  of  oppression,  is  still 
infinitely  better  than  the  Turk,  w^ho,  by  others'  help,  has  been 
able  to  domineer  over  him.  In  every  scale  that  weighs  the 
character  of  their  culture  and  civilization,  there  is  no  pretence 
even  of  comparison.  True,  the  Greek  has  his  faults.  Men 
say  he  is  cunning.  But  cunning  is  always  the  only  defence  of, 
the  weak  against  the  strong.  The  strong  man,  like  the  strong 
brute,  defends  himself  by  force  ;  and  the  weaker  man,  like  the 
weaker  animal,  defends  himself  by  the  keenness  of  his  cun- 
ning. The  very  oppression  that  robs  men  of  the  power  to  re- 
sist develops  in  the  victim  race  this  part  of  its  intellect ;  but, 
in  spite  of  that,  the  Greek  has  shown,  in  the  prosperity  that 
he  has  reaped  since  his  independence,  in  the  increase  of  pop- 
ulation, in  the  great  increase  of  wealth,  in  his  accumulation  of 
culture,  in  his  schools  and  universities,  that,  only  free  him 
from  the  superincumbent  weight,  he  will  yet  give  us  the 
eastern  half  of  the  Mediterranean  back  to  civilization.  In  my 
view,  the  Greek  is  the  Ne^v-Englander  of  the  East.  Men  call 
him  idle ;  but  he  has  only  been  indolent  when  there  was  no 
security  for  the  fruits  of  his  industry.  He  is  like  ourselves 
in  his  characteristics.  He  wishes  to  toil  with  his  brains,  and 
not  to  be  obliged  to  resort  to  the  manual  drudgery  of 
his  hands.  The  Yankee  race  skulks  the  primeval  curse 
[laughter]  ;  seeks  to  get  its  living  without  the  sweat  of  its 
brow.  It  harnesses  steam,  and  sends  the  lightning  on  errands. 
It  invents.  It  undertakes  to  make  man  superior  to  the  ele- 
ments by  the  vigor  of  his  intellect.  The  Greek  does  the 
same.  Give  him  freedom,  and  he  runs  the  same  race.  But 
that  New-England  race  would  have  fought  for  the  right  to  in- 
vent before  they  would  have  submitted  to  a  continued  exist- 


32 


ence  of  manual  toil.  [Applause.]  The  Greek,  under  his 
previous  form  of  national  life,  has  never  had  the  freedom  of 
development  wliich  we  have  enjoyed.  Give  to  the  Greek 
kingdom,  the  Greek  race,  on  the  soil  which  originally  be- 
longed to  them,  the  opportunities  and  the  liberty  of  develop- 
ment which  we  have  had,  and  they  will  come  nearer,  as  I  read 
them,  to  the  New-England  race,  in  all  the  characteristics  of 
their  national  life,  "i'raders  on  the  broadest  basis,  inventors 
subjugating  nature  to  human  intellect,  and  not  to  human 
hands,  —  tliis  will  be  the  character  of  their  prosperity  in  the 
future.  And  they  claim  of  us,  as  I  said,  sympathy  on  a  broader 
basis  than  Italy  has  claimed  it  hitherto.  After  all,  this  great 
uprising  in  Italy  has  been  one  simply  for  a  change  of  political 
masters,  of  political  institutions.  What  oppressions  she  had 
were  incidental  to  these.  Greece  cries  out  to  us,  "  Civiliza- 
tion is  figliting  against  barbarism ;  Christianity,  against  that 
intolerance  which  does  not  allow  it  the  right  to  live  or  to 
worship  :  come  to  my  aid  !  " 

Well,  they  have  chosen  the  happiest  hour  for  their  resist- 
ance, the  one  most  hopeful  for  its  success.  In  the  first  place, 
Turkey  is  but  a  farce.    "  The  sick  man,"  as  Chesterfield  said, 

is  already  dead  and  buried,  only  he  does  not  wish  it  known 
among  his  friends."  [Laughter.]  Europe  sustains  the  farce 
of  a  government  for  some  unexiDlained  reasons  of  her  diplo- 
macy. Euj-ope  handed  back  Crete  to  her  masters  on  some 
diplomatic  grounds  of  the  balance  of  power.  Crete,  for  thirty- 
six  years,  has  suffered  every  oppression  which  can  be  visited 
on  men,  women,  and  children  ;  and  that  is  enough  for  her  to 
pay  as  penalty  to  the  exigencies  of  European  diplomacy.  She 
rises  now  to  ask  of  Europe  her  rights ;  and  what  can  Europe 
reply?  Europe  may  say,  "There  are  some  delicate  questions 
of  balance  of  power  yet  which  oblige  us  to  keep  up  the  farce, 
the  pretended  government  of  Turkey."  How  much  weight 
that  ought  to  have  on  a  nation  claiming  unity  and  rights  like 
the  Greek,  you  can  judge  ;  but  America,  at  least,  has  no  inter- 
est in  the  balance  of  European  politics.  It  is  of  no  account 
to  us,  whatever  it  may  be  to  Austria,  to  France,  to  Russia,  to 
England,  that  this  pretence  and  sham  of  a  government  be 
kept  up  at  Constantinople.    In  the  falling-apart  of  that  bar- 


33 


barism,  Crete  claims  her  right,  — a  God-givea  right.  She 
claims  it  of  an  empire  that  has  not  the  power  to  protect,  which 
has  only  the  power  to  annoy.  I  say  America  is  not  bound,  in 
this  emergency,  to  pay  the  slightest  regard  to  that  pretence 
of  a  government  which  nothing  but  European  diplomacy 
recognizes.  Put  aside  the  appearances  of  things.  Turkey, 
with  her  exhausted  exchequer,  her  entirely  decrepit  right 
hand,  has  no  title  to  be  considered  a  government.  What  has 
it  ever  done  for  Crete  ?  What  is  the  right  by  which  govern- 
ments exist?  Cicero  says,  in  one  of  his  treatises,  ^^Qu(E  est 
enim  civitas?  Omnis  ne  conventus  etiam  ferorum  et  imma- 
nium?  Omnis  ne  etiam  fugitivorum  ac  latronum  cougregata 
unum  in  locum  multitudo  ?  Certe  negabis."  —  What  is 
a  state  ?  Is  every  gathering  of  savages  and  barbarians  such  ? 
Is  every  gang  of  fugitives  and  robbers  a  state?  Certainly 
not." 

No  civil  society,  no  government,  can  rightfully  exist  except 
on  the  basis  of  the  willing  submission  of  its  citizens,  and  by 
the  performance  of  the  duty  of  rendering  equal  justice  be- 
tween man  and  man.  A  state  must  show,  in  the  protection  of 
its  subjects,  in  the  education  of  its  children,  in  the  creation 
of  great  public  benefits,  in  roads,  hospitals,  harbors,  commerce, 
in  trade  opened  and  protected,  in  the  great  benefits  which 
civil  society  is  meant  to  subserve  and  extend,  or  at  least  by 
an  attempt  to  carry  out  these  great  human  interests,  her  right 
to  obedience  and  respect.  Point  me  to  the  first  effort  that 
w Turkish  barbarism  ever  made  since  it  encamped  in  Constan- 
tinople for  any  one  of  these  things.  Point  me  to  one  single 
road,  school,  hospital,  public  institution,  or  the  preservation  of 
public  or  private  right  in  the  island  which  it  undertakes  to 
govern,  that  it  has  ever  pretended  to  help.  Boston  men,  we 
are  not  to  be  the  children  of  words  ;  we  are  not  to  be  duped 
by  appearances  ;  and,  if  there  is  a  government  against  which 
these  brother  Christians  and  sons  of  civilization  are  con- 
tending, where  is  it  ?  and  what  has  it  ever  done  ?  Nothing 
but  murder  its  subjects  ;  nothing  but  steal  the  bread  of  its 
laborers ;  nothing  but  cripple  the  development  of  its  popu- 
lation ;  nothing  but  hamper  commerce ;  nothing  but  gag 
speech  and  crush  conscience ;  nothing  but  destroy  every 


34 


element  which  makes  civih'zation.  If  there  is  any  thing 
in  the  history  and  attitude  of  this  country,  or  in  the  elements 
which  go  to  make  up  this  government,  we  have  a  right  to 
deny  to  such  a  government  a  place  in  the  sisterhood  of  states. 
This  is  the  ground  on  which  I,  for  one,  am  willing  to  rest,  and 
urge  on  this  nation  as  a  nation,  and  on  us  as  individuals,  the 
duty  to  help  a  struggling  and  undisputed  nationality  against 
a  power  which  Europe  has  maintained  only  for  her  own  self- 
ish purposes.  [Applause.] 

T  know  very  well,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  delicacy  of  inter- 
national law  which  claims  that  this  is  a  dangerous  principle. 
But  humanity  has  certain  great  rules.  The  brotherhood  of 
man  means  something.  It  is  not  a  phrase  ;  and,  if  the  brother- 
hood of  man  means  any  thing,  then  I  say,  that,  when  a  state 
undertakes  to  treat  its  subjects  as  the  Porte  has  treated  the 
Christians  for  centuries,  any  nation  has  a  right  to  help  them ; 
and  no  Christian  people  have  a  right  to  maintain  such  relations 
with  the  Porte  as  would  prevent  their  helping  them.  I  know 
the  danger  of  this  principle  ;  but  humanity  must  not  surren- 
der a  right  because  tyrants  may,  under  some  pretence  or  other, 
abuse  it.  [Applause.]  If  3^ou  deny  that  rule,  you  conse- 
crate injustice  and  anarchy  under  the  form  of  law. 

Now,  considering  the  weakness  of  Turkey,  considering  that 
paralysis  of  the  European  States  which  exists  at  this  moment, 
—  that  paralysis  of  France,  England,  Russia,  Austria,  which 
gave  to  Germany  its  splendid  and  prompt  success,  which  ex- 
plains why  Bismark  in  an  hour  has  made  the  long  splendor 
of  Napoleon  fade  away  [applause],  —  that  paralysis  in  the 
diplomacy  of  Europe  is  the  opportunity  of  Greece.  There  is 
not  a  nation  on  the  Continent  that  is  in  a  condition  to  inter- 
fere. Turkey  is  nothing;  and  all  these  boasted  realms  around 
her,  if  they  dare  to  put  their  flag  behind  the  Crescent,  risk 
such  a  European  conflict  as  will  make  all  Europe  a  new  map 
within  thirty  years.  France,  anxious  as  she  is  to  touch  the 
Eastern  question,  knows  it  well.  The  sagacious  Greek  knows 
his  opportunity.  He  has  but  to  persevere,  and  he  is  certain 
of  success.  Fortified  in  his  mountain  recesses,  he  cannot  be 
beaten.  The  island  is  divided  by  one  single  chain,  running 
from  end  to  end.    It  is  the  Switzerland  of  the  East.  Who  has 


been  able,  in  eight  hundred  years,  to  subjugate  the  Swiss  ? 
It  is  San  Domingo  over  again,  —  a  race  contending  against 
alien  blood  for  their  homes ;  and,  as  Homer  says,  "  to  fight  for 
one's  own  home  is  half  the  battle."  [Applause.]  Now,  these 
Cretan  men  in  their  fortresses  ask  of  us  what  ?  Bread  for 
their  wives  and  children,  shelter  from  extermination.  In 
the  recent  convent  fight  at  Arkadi,  six  hundred  Cretans, 
—  men,  women,  and  children,  —  cooped  within  the  walls  of  a 
convent,  were  assailed,  I  think,  by  ten  thousand  troops. 
When  the  battle  had  at  last  broken  through  the  outer  wall,  it 
was  sustained  for  six  hours,  hand  to  hand,  in  the  yard  of  the 
convent.  When  the  time  came  finally  for  the  decision,  death 
or  submission,  knowing  well  that  out  from  under  that  Creek 
flag  no  living  soul  would  pass,  they  themselves  applied  the 
match  to  the  magazine,  and  went  to  heaven ;  while  three 
thousand  of  their  opponents  went  to  their  graves.  [Ap, 
plause.]  A  man  is  not  obliged  thus  to  die  with  wife  and 
child  rather  than  to  submit  to  the  conditions  of  civilized 
war.  The  Creek  saw  his  wife  and  child  on  each  side  of 
him.  It  was  not  war  he  was  waging,  when,  by  surrendering 
his  sword,  he  might  be  himself  a  prisoner,  and  their  lives  be 
saved.  He  was  fighting,  hand  to  hand,  with  pirates,  enemies 
of  the  human  race.  The  survivors,  the  brothers,  the  sons, 
the  fathers,  of  those  men,  come  to  us,  and  say,  We  can 
fight ;  but  let  us  fight  as  civilized  man  fights,  putting  only 
our  own  lives  on  the  hazard.  Do  not  let  us  fight  with  the 
lives  of  wife  and  children  hanging  on  the  issue  of  the  battle. 
Give  us  shelter,  as  Christendom  has  recognized  warfare  for  a 
thousand  years,  —  shelter  and  bread  for  woman  and  child." 
And,  with  such  a  history  as  I  have  detailed,  this  is  all  the  Cre- 
tan asks  of  America.  Shall  he  have  it  ?  Will  we  do  for  this 
last  gallant  resistance  of  the  Greek  what  our  fathers  did  for 
the  Morea  ?  Will  we,  in  this  better  opportunity ;  one  so 
likely  to  open  the  whole  Levant  to  Christianity  and  civiliza- 
tion ;  one  so  likely  to  make  the  Turk  fold  up  his  tent  like 
the  Arab,  and  silently  glide  from  Europe,  —  will  we  hold  up  the 
hands  of  civilized  warfare  by  rendering  it  impossible  that 
the  Turk  should  be  a  brute  and  a  barbarian  ?  The  black  race 
in  San  Domingo  met  from  France  the  same  edict  of  extermi- 


36 


nation  ;  and,  the  moment  the  Frenchman  issued  it,  he  guaran- 
teed his  own  defeat  in  the  indomitable  resolution  to  avenge 
which  filled  the  hearts  of  his  opponents.  The  moment  the 
French  sword  knew  no  difference  between  man,  woman,  and 
child,  the  island  rose  like  one  man  to  an  effort  which  made 
subjugation  an  impossibility.   I  read  so  the  history  of  Crete. 

Some  fear  to  offer  a  new  object  of  public  sympathy,  lest 
they  distract  that  attention  our  own  affairs  require.  No 
need  of  such  fear.  Every  heart-beat  in  favor  of  liberty  the 
world  over  makes  the  brain  more  skilful  and  the  hand  more 
active  in  dealing  with  treason  at  home.  [Applause.]  It  is 
not  by  doing  too  much  in  good  causes  that  men  weaken 
themselv.es.  It  is  by  inaction,  by  a  charity  which  begins  at 
home  and  ends  at  home,  tliat  the  strength  rusts  and  the  heart 
grows  chill.  Loyalty  here  lacks  not  means,  but  only  a  deci- 
sive purpose.  Giving  free  rein  to  our  sympathy  will  only 
feed  tliis  needed  purpose.  Self-sacrifice  is  a  habit,  and,  like 
all  habits,  grows  stronger  by  indulgence.  On  the  contrary, 
by  fidelity  at  home,  we  have  at  last  won  the  right  to  offer 
help  abroad.  It  is  because  one  hand  has  never  rested  in  its 
effort  to  resist  oppression  here  that  I  feel  justified  in  hold- 
ing out  the  other  to  the  oppressed  of  all  lands.  [Applause.] 
For  the  first  time  since  we  were  a  nation,  the  people  of  this 
Commonwealth  may  stretch  out  clean  hands  to  help  the 
world.  Having  been  "  reconciled  to  our  brother,"  we  may 
now    offer  our  gift."    [Loud  applause.] 

Greece  comes  to  us  at  a  moment  when  the  loyal  North  has 
proved  that  with  one  hand  she  could  conquer  rebellion,  and 
with  the  other  fend  off  the  world,  while  she  marched  unfail- 
ingly onward  in  her  ordinary  pathway  of  duty.  We  have 
enough  left  for  this  work ;  and  if  we  owe  aid  to  any  one,  or 
to  any  realm,  we  owe  it  to  Greece.  Christian  civilization  is  a 
threefold  band.  We  owe  to  the  Jew  the  form  and  structure 
of  our  faith;  to  Goth  and  Saxon  many  precious  elements  and 
safeguards  of  civil  life  :  all  the  rest  —  art,  literature,  science, 
law,  diplomacy,  and  forms  of  government  —  we  inherit  from 
the  classic  storehouse  of  Greece  and  Rome.  If  they  did  not 
invent  all,  they  improved  and  preserved  for  us  the  garnered 
wealth  of  the  race.    Using  the  tools  they  gave  us,  we  grope 


37 


in  the  ashes  of  extinct  dynasties,  Egyptian  and  Oriental,  to 
find  where  G-reece  herself  sometimes  studied.  But  for  all, 
what  she  borrowed  and  what  she  discovered,  our  debt  is  to 
her.  But  for  her,  all  would  have  been  lost.  It  was  at  a  Gre- 
cian shrine  that  Rome  herself  lighted  that  torch  which  flashed 
from  the  topmost  of  her  battlements,  till  the  shores  of  three 
continents  grew  bright  in  its  blaze."  [Applause.]  If  it  was 
Rome's  "  car  of  triumph  that  smoothed  the  path  for  the  naked 
feet  of  the  gospel,"  we  owe  to  Greece  that  marvellous  tongue, 
thanks  to  which  the  gospel  did  not  "  stammer  in  barbarous 
idioms."  [Loud  applause.]  We  live  in  the  warmth  of  her 
art  we  act  in  the  light  of  her  example.  She  gave  us  Ther- 
mopylae ;  she  gave  us  Athens.  How  shall  we  ever  pay  it 
back?  Do  not  speak  of  gifts!  Can  a  child,  however  rich, 
give  any  thing  to  a  parent?  It  is  only  debtor  and  creditor. 
Greece  summons  her  debtors  the  world  over  to  pay  back  a 
tithe,  a  mere  percentage,  of  the  incalculable  benefit  that  her 
intellect,  her  law,  her  example,  have  been  to  Christianity  and 
civilization.  True  enough,  as  Dr.  Huntington  has  told  us, 
she  may  never  play  again  that  high-souled  part  in  leading  the 
race.  No  such  one  great  leader  is  necessary.  She  has  her- 
self lifted  us  to  her  level.  But  she  will  take  her  place  again, 
under  proper  sympathy,  by  the  side  of  Italy  in  the  great  sis- 
terhood of  states.  She  will  dispel  that  cloud  which  has  rested 
so  long  over  Eastern  Europe.  She  will  contribute  the  inge- 
nuity, the  activity,  the  courage,  the  enthusiasm,  the  indom- 
itable perseverance,  of  her  race  to  the  great  cause  of  self- 
government.  We  win  her  back  where  she  belongs, — into  the 
ranks  of  constitutional  government.  We  place  her  where  the 
world  needs  her,  —  in  the  very  van  of  Europe,  to  represent 
the  best  form  of  its  civilization.  She  is  strong  enough  in  her 
own  sons,  strong  enough  in  her  own  determination,  strong 
enough  in  her  undying  love  of  liberty.  Missolonghi  and 
Thermopylae  —  they  are  not  an  iota  nobler  than  the  men  who 
rally  to-day  in  the  mountains  of  Crete,  with  no  sympathy 
from  the  world,  with  all  Europe  marshalled  in  appearance 
against  them,  and  say,  for  the  hundredth  time,  One  efibrt 
more  to  be  men!"  [Applause.]  Every  generation  has  brought 
up  a  holocaust  of  its  young  men  and  its  best  men  to  the  altar 


38 


of  this  undying  determination  to  be  free.  Have  they  not  at 
least  won  the  right  for  America  and  civilization  to  rally 
around  tliera,  and  save  them  from  this  horde  of  pirates,  from 
this  encampment  of  barbarians,  from  this  law  of  extermina- 
tion? I  think  they  have.  I  think  we  are  only  paying  an 
honest  debt.  I  thank  God  that  the  American  people,  in  their 
own  struggle,  not  yet  completed,  to  wipe  the  blot  from  their 
own  escutcheon,  and  make  themselves  the  model  state,  should 
have  this  appeal  made  to  them  from  the  youngest  of  Continen- 
tal governments.  Greece,  in  the  Far  East,  with  manhood 
suffrage,  a  free  press,  toleration  of  every  faith,  jury  trials, 
among  the  elements  of  her  civil  life,  —  is  not  that  brother- 
hood? To  what  nation  shall  she  go  as  nearer  of  kin  to  her 
than  to  England  and  to  ourselves?  She  had  the  philosophy 
of  Plato ;  she  had  the  courage  and  eloquence  which  led  the 
world.  What  needed  she?  Nothing  but  the  old  Saxon 
forms  that  guard  individual  right.  Those  she  adopted ;  and 
having  thus  made  herself  the  complete  sister  of  Northern  and 
Western  civilization,  the  outpost  of  their  future,  she  rises 
again,  in  the  universal  checkmate  of  Europe,  in  the  bank- 
ruptcy and  utter  decrepitude  of  Turkey,  to  say  to  the  world. 
Give  me  one  chance  more  !  "  And  to  us  she  sends  the  mes- 
sage, Take  off  the  burden  of  wife  and  child,  that  1  may  fight 
without  this  sickening  of  the  heart!  Desolation  carried  from 
one  end  of  the  island  to  the  other,  so  that  no  green  thing  can 
grow  upon  it !  I  can  starve.  Only  give  a  shelter  in  your 
homes,  and,  when  they  are  there,  bread,  to  wife  and  child,  and 
I  will  give  you  back  the  East  of  Europe,  the  counterpart  of 
the  West."  [Applause.]  We  in  Boston  sometimes  fondly 
arrogate  to  ourselves  the  name  of  "  the  Athens  of  America." 
How  poor  our  title,  we  ourselves  know.  But  there  is  one 
evidence  of  the  title  that  we  can  yet  put  forth  ;  there  is  one 
demonstration  of  brotherhood  and  descent  that  we  can  now 
give  to  the  world.  When  the  right  hand  of  Athens  is 
stretched  out  for  bread,  let  the  first  cargo  which  goes  back 
from  the  world  of  Columbus  go  from  the  city  that  claims  to 
be  her  sister.    [Enthusiastic  applause.] 


39 


Hon.  John  A.  Andrew  was  presented  at  the  conclusion  of 
Mr.  Phillips's  address,  and  drew  hearty  applause  from  the 
audience.  He  said  another  engagement  had  detained  him 
until  the  present  late  hour;  and  being  ignorant  of  what  had 
been  said,  and  knowing  he  could  add  nothing,  he  thought  he 
would  discharge  his  duty  in  reading  the  following  resolu- 
tions : 

RESOLUTIONS. 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  appeal  to  us  of  the  women  and  chil- 
dren of  the  Island  of  Crete  to  save  them  from  starvation,  we 
recognize  a  claim  upon  our  common  humanity  as  irresistible 
as  it  is  pathetic. 

Resolved,  That,  as  the  last  great  struggle  of  Christianity 
against  Mahometanism  was  fought  out  against  the  Turks  by 
Venice  in  Crete ;  as  her  inhabitants  were  an  integral  part 
of  the  revolution  against  the  Turks  which  gave  Greece  her 
independence,  and  had  nearly  expelled  the  enemy  when  the 
Allied  Powers  gave  the  island  to  Turkey  against  the  prayers 
and  protest  of  all  Greece ;  as,  under  the  Turkish  Government, 
and  its  system  of  farming  out  its  revenues,  the  Cretans  have 
been  oppressed  past  all  endurance,  and  have  taken  up  arms, 
and  it  is  the  old  struggle  of  the  Christian  against  the  Infidel, 
of  the  Bible  against  the  Koran,  of  Christian  marriage  against 
polygamy,  of  progress  against  barbarism,  —  we  believe  it  to 
be  the  duty  of  Christians  of  all  sects  and  creeds  to  save  these 
women  and  children  from  starving,  all  the  more  because  it 
may  incidentally  help  their  husbands  and  brothers  in  strug- 
gling for  liberty  and  Christianity. 

Resolved,  That  as,  ever  since  her  classic  days,  Greece  has 
been  able  to  put  the  stamp  of  her  language  and  national  char- 
acter upon  all  those  whose  blood  has  been  mixed  with  hers ; 
as  her  written  language  to  day  is  nearly  identical  with  that  of 
Plato  and  ^schylus ;  as  Greece  has  a  public  school'  system 
unequalled  by  any  in  the  world,  and  a  university  among  the 
best  endowed  in  Europe  ;  as  the  Greeks  are  now  the  princi- 
pal merchants  and  sailors  of  the  Mediterranean,  and,  as  a 
nation,  quick-witted,  united,  progressive  *  as  the  Revolution 
of  1821  and  the  present  one  in  Crete  have  giv^n  examples  of 
self  sacrificing  heroism  worthy  to  stand  with  Thermopylae,  — 
we  see  in  all  these  facts  that  her  faults  are  mainly  those  of 
necessity  and  circumstance,  and  that,  once  all  jfree,  she  may 
create  a  new  history  as  imperishable  as  her  old  renown. 


40 


The  resolutions  were  loudly  applauded.  At  the  close,  Gov. 
Andrew  said,  I  venture,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  make  one  single  sug- 
gestion,—  that  if  all  of  us  were  dumb  to-night,  if  the  eloquent 
voices  which  have  stimulated  your  blood  and  inspired  your 
hearts  had  been  silent  as  the  tomb,  your  presence,  sir,  would 
have  been  more  eloquent  than  a  thousand  orations,  when  we 
remember,  that,  after  the  lifetime  of  a  whole  generation  of  men, 
he  who  forty  years  ago  bared  his  arm  to  seize  the  Suliote 
blade  speaks  again  with  the  voice  of  his  age  in  defence  of 
the  cause  of  his  youth.    [Prolonged  applause.] 

The  resolutions  w^ere  then  adopted  unanimously,  and  with 
acclamations. 


